Generic Mission Denials

EngrishEngrish ✭✭✭✭
in General

I continue to get a very GENERIC rejections for my mission mural that I submitted and it's frustrating. I have 3 of 12 missions approved then the rest get denied and this has been happening since June.


Recently I received this,

  • A lack of a clear and informative description and/or title
  • Mission Image, description, and/or title are unrelated to the Waypoints chosen

To avoid such issues, try to create a theme around your Missions. Some ideas for possible themes:

  • Missions that allow Agents to explore the city, whether it's the best food, coolest art, top tourist must-do activities and locations, etc.
  • Missions that cover history or historical figures, like a Mission along the Boston Freedom Trail or a Mission tracing important points in the life of Ralph Waldo Emerson.
  • Pop culture Missions, like tours of movie locations or a local band's favorite spots to eat, drink and relax around the city.
  • College campus tours.
  • Fitness (e.g., Hacking all Portals along a rigorous hiking trail or running path).

Note that these may not be the only issues with your mission. In the future, be sure to thoroughly review our Mission Criteria in the Help Center.

Here are some tips for creating high-quality Missions:

  • Set expectations for your Mission: in the description, include information about how long it may take, the amount of distance it covers, whether it’s best on foot vs. on bicycle, etc.
  • If you use passphrases or create hidden Missions, for added challenge and excitement consider requiring the Agent to examine the actual Portal to find the answer or their next Waypoint.
  • Keep in mind that Agents cannot go on multiple Missions at the same time, so Missions that are too long or difficult may force Agents to abort halfway through. Enhance your Mission by adding custom descriptions for each Waypoint, which makes the Mission more interesting for your fellow Agents.

Best,

NIA OPS.

And it was for a 12 tile mission mural of this,

IMG_20201224_151006.jpg

This first time I was submitting the mural I was receiving,

  • Text or images that reveal information about your identity or another player's identity, including (but not limited to) real names, phone numbers, addresses, etc.
  • An image with identifiable people or faces
  • Full or partial codenames/Agent names (e.g., "Mission idea from @neo" or "this is neo's favorite lunch spot," etc.)
  • Clues or passphrases that require contacting a certain person to get the answer

Note that these may not be the only issues with your mission. In the future, be sure to thoroughly review our Mission Criteria in the Help Center.

Here are some tips for creating high-quality Missions:

  • Set expectations for your Mission: in the description, include information about how long it may take, the amount of distance it covers, whether it’s best on foot vs. on bicycle, etc.
  • If you use passphrases or create hidden Missions, for added challenge and excitement consider requiring the Agent to examine the actual Portal to find the answer or their next Waypoint.
  • Keep in mind that Agents cannot go on multiple Missions at the same time, so Missions that are too long or difficult may force Agents to abort halfway through. Enhance your Mission by adding custom descriptions for each Waypoint, which makes the Mission more interesting for your fellow Agents.

Best,

NIA OPS

I had custom messages for each mission and I was getting the above. Since then I changed the photo to one that was a little farther away (this is my photo, taken by me). The original photo you could barely see a logo and you could tell there were people in the photo but you could not identify anyone due to the distance.


This is more of complaining as the generic messages for mission rejections are just horrible because they don't specify why exactly the mission was rejected.

Tagged:

Comments

  • rinaznetrinaznet ✭✭

    I totally feel you. It’s very frustrating to get the mission rejected with the same copy and paste message.

    I have submitted some images that I have drawn myself but the team at niantic does not believe that I’ve done them even after sending them screenshots of them in the native app and continues the same copy and paste rejected message.

    I don’t know what else to do.

  • MatiasM20MatiasM20 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @Engrish share the missions title and description, maybe that could be improved and help you with this.

  • EngrishEngrish ✭✭✭✭

    I have already changed the name and shortened the description now to where it is, "Hack these portals in order" I did have, "Enjoy the area and look out for insert animals, mountains, science research building, glacier, ocean, etc. I would like to have the farthest South Mural before I leave for the season.

  • MargariteDVilleMargariteDVille ✭✭✭✭

    I've been submitting and collecting mission tips for years. Here they are. I hope something helps.

    ***THESE ARE MY WORDS NOT NIANTIC'S***

    New Mission Reject

    • Add REJECT to its title, and create a new mission for your next try. This gives you a record of what happened (in case it’s rejected again and you want to try again, or you have a new theory later). Plus, the rejected version might be “tainted”, so go in a slow track.
    • More generally, the reason cited in a rejection notice is usually, but not always, connected to the reason a mission was rejected. Get experienced mission creators to look at anything that is rejected,
    • Now your focus is to get it approved, even if it means making temporary changes you don’t like. Get a skeleton approved, and plan phases of edits to make it better.

    “Use of image or text” Email

    • Try a portal key picture as badge. Niantic already owns it. (You’ll probably need to edit it to make it work.) Or use a picture you took yourself. Pictures from other sources could have an embedded copyright, causing mission rejection. 
    • Any individual mission whose icon is a single letter, or looks like it might be a single letter if you squint your eyes, will be immediately rejected with an unrelated reason cited on the rejection notice.
    • Last resort:  submit without a badge. Add it back after published! 
    • Remove words (even the name of the town) that in your wildest imagination might be a person’s name.
    • Don’t use song lyrics, product names, TV/movie lines, etc. Google phrases used. Ask someone older/younger than you, who would know a different decade.
    • Make the title and description boring, and remove portal descriptions (so definitely no potential copyright infringement). Like: “Hack these things to earn a badge.” You can edit it after it’s approved.

    “Quality issues” Email

    • Rearrange portals, even if Any Order. Optimize the order (from the approver’s standpoint) anyway. I have seen rejected Any Order missions accepted after merely changing portal order. One way: Temporarily set to Sequenced and rearrange to have the shortest route (lines), ignoring roads. Then set it back to Any Order before submitting. 
    • Avoid starting on the same portal as another mission (some approvers allow; some don’t). 
    • Add and drop one or more waypoints. 
    • Maybe your title, mission description, and/or portal descriptions are clever, but your approver didn’t ”get it”. Try making them boring for the initial approval, then edit. 
    • Your chances of approval go up if the name of the city or region is in the TITLE of the mission.
    • Your chances of approval go up if each mission says where the banner starts, and/or describes what this specific mission explores.
    • Niantic greatly favors missions from people who have submitted none, or very few, already. If all else fails, find a pal to submit it for you.


    Ambush Portals

    • Omit Fire stations, hospitals - anything that might raise a red flag for an approver. You can always try to add it after the initial approval.
    • Try to include 7 or more waypoints. Several times, I had missions approved minus a portal, and my edits to add the portal back were rejected (a store, a clubhouse, and a church). Best guess: these portals have been reported (so Niantic doesn’t want them on a mission), but not processed (so are still in play). If this randomness puts your mission below the 6 waypoint minimum, it will be rejected - still showing your original portals, so you won’t know why. Better to start with too many, then do the mission, and potentially edit to remove some. 

    Wording Tips

    • Do not use an at sign - not even “Closes @ dusk.” (Yeah, the character limit is killer.) Avoid other special characters too, as they could be flagged by a security program as a possible attempt at code injection. 
    • Minimize/remove acronyms. They’re not looking them up; just assuming the worst.
    • Be clear when using a city or county name – the approver doesn’t know what Barrow is, or that Helen is a town.
    • Clarify/remove anything a non-local might not understand, like A1A => Hwy A1A.
    • Avoid words that MIGHT mean you’re marketing something. I used “Banking” in a title, and every portal/fieldtrip was about a long-gone bank, but I think they suspected I was trying to get customers. Changed title to “Historic Bank”, and it was approved.
    • Don’t assume that something in other missions - or a portal name - is OK for your mission. They were approved by somebody else. Your approver is not researching what’s already out there. Example: A mission named after its first portal, with that portal key as mission badge (BMW Water Tower) - was rejected. Changed only title - accepted. Another: Used identical description as another mission - rejected. Description changed - accepted


  • pictop23pictop23 ✭✭
    https://community.ingress.com/en/discussion/comment/154052#Comment_154052

    Today I got a this.

    20211108_021832.jpg
    20211108_021739.jpg

    After I edit the Route. 4 Missions got unpublished.

  • AeternusLykosAeternusLykos ✭✭

    Hello there.


    I've had a quite dumb rejection (alike some of your examples).

    The mission was initially named "Clube Atlântico da Madalena - P. D. Albérico Rúber".

    TL;DR: it's a local sports club (acronym "CAM") whose sports park was build on a piece of land donated by Dr. Albérico Rúber, one of the club's eldest members.

    "P. D." represents "parque desportivo" (portuguese for sports park), which obviously doesn't fit within the limit of characters in the title, that's why I shortened it, though these words are on the description so it would be somewhat easy to spot the resemblance.

    HOWEVER, this is what I got as the reasons for rejecting:

    "- Use of official Niantic logos or event names (NL1331, Mission Day, etc.)

    - Use of Image or Text that claims the Mission as "official", otherwise implies it has special designation, or is endorsed by Niantic (e.g., "The Official Ingress London Mission")"

    🤷 I don't know what to do here. I've changed to "Clube Atlântico da Madalena - Parque Albérico Rúber", but also has been rejected with the same reply...

  • DrHydrosaurDrHydrosaur ✭✭✭✭
    edited January 2022

    Random thought: do they think “Atlântico” too closely resembles “Niantic”???

    I could never understand why the feedback is so poor on mission rejections. Are they really being inundated by enough that they can’t provide a precise single sentence reason?

    Years ago, before the single letter in the banner image rule was added to the public list of reasons to auto reject, I submitted the same missions dozens of times before I finally found out in forums/Reddit that solo letters were unofficially forbidden (I was trying to submit periodic table element banners).

  • AeternusLykosAeternusLykos ✭✭
    https://community.ingress.com/en/discussion/comment/160252#Comment_160252

    Holy ****, I hadn't even thought of that. Could be a possibility, but don't they even look at the local portals? That word/name is literally on EVERY portal on that mission. You just can't miss it.

    Feels like they are like those people on Wayfarer that read half a title and reject for a random reason.


    Another thought:

    There are SO many missions in my area with sports club crests and yet I find that, if I use this club's one, it gets rejected. Where's the difference? Double standards much?

  • MargariteDVilleMargariteDVille ✭✭✭✭

    @pictop23 You can't use an at @ in your title. Also, I goggled "Twins Passau" (and several variations) and didn't find anything. I don't know what your description said, but just based on the title, I see where Niantic would have doubts.

  • pictop23pictop23 ✭✭
    edited January 2022

    The @ isn't the problem. The problem was The Translation from german to englisch.

    There are only one mission left because of obscenity.


    With that Banner I had the same problem.

    https://bannergress.com/banner/twins-grenzland-c025

    And Thanks to @NianticThia who found the issue.

    It was flagged as having personal info on it

    I think "agentenduo auf erkundungstour am grenzland" is being translated as "agents erkundungstour and grenzland" (erkundungstour and grenzland being agent names) instead of agent twins (the characters in the image).


    Made englisch descriptions on the last few Missions and the problem was solved.

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